Assassin's Creed: Rebirth
by TheCatWrites
Summary: Canon to end of Brotherhood, AU from there. Those Who Came Before set many plans in motion. Now, those lines converge. At the center are three young Assassins: Desmond Miles, Shaun Hastings, and Rebecca Crane.
1. Chapter 1

[Author's Note: Okay, I think I've written enough ahead that I can start posting this. I know where this fic is going but not how it's getting there, so consider yourselves warned, this is going to be a _long_ journey! One fraught with giant gaps in updates due to me getting my life together, but I just can't keep it to myself anymore.

Rated M for sex and violence. I don't pull punches. This fic will probably contain most-if-not-all of the triggers. These people have shitty lives and I'm not going to sugarcoat that. That said, it's not all-bad-all-the-time. Basically this fic springs from my desire to explore the workings of the modern-day Order of Assassins. I'm following main-series canon up to the end of Brotherhood and picking and choosing from Revelations, the peripheral games, and the encyclopedia.

Okay, I think that's all the info you'll need for now...andiamo!]

Assassin's Creed: Rebirth

Chapter 1: Desmond

_She thought she had them…him…and she did. He was hers, he was _her_, the knowledge flooded and washed away everything and he tried to step backward, she stepped forward, tried to stop his hand rising, she stepped forward. He stood still, but she stepped forward. He turned away, but she stepped forward. He screamed and railed and swore and clawed and she stepped forward. He begged and sobbed and bargained and she stepped forward._

_As she raised her arm and the blade sought flesh, he tried to look away, close his eyes, do _anything_ against her will._

_The steel he'd scraped of rust, polished and sharpened until it regained its former razor edge, slid through cloth and skin and muscle, one quick motion._

_And she let him go._

_Something broke._

_Black._

_Voices at the edge of the dark spaces._

"Put him back in the Animus! It's the only way to fix this!"

_But she's hurt…_I_ hurt her…_

"Well you've sure managed to get yourself into some deep shit, Seventeen. I think it's time we talked in person. Follow me."

_He dove into the memories._


	2. Chapter 2

[Author's Note: Here's Chapter 2, finally! This one's bloody long, to make up for the long delay in posting. Chapter 3 is currently done, but I'm trying to get up kind of a safety net of finished chapters in case life or writer's block happens, so expect another long gap before that one and then shorter times between updates.

**A Warning About My Warning System For This Work**

I believe that it is polite to warn readers if content that not everyone may like is forthcoming. Normally, for short things like _I Know You Know_, I try my very best to list everything in the warnings section, and add things if people point out something I've missed. However, Rebirth isn't a short work that can be easily broken down into subjects/themes. So I will be putting chapter-specific warnings up when something in particular might be upsetting to people (e.g. a character having suicidal thoughts), but otherwise the warning is in the rating: FOR MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY. That doesn't mean 18 and over, that means YOU ARE A MATURE PERSON WHO CAN HANDLE READING ABOUT BAD THINGS HAPPENING TO GOOD PEOPLE. I think we can agree that's fair, yes?

Also

Just a reminder, this is a CANON DIVERGENT AU, meaning I will be sticking to AC canon through Brotherhood, then picking and choosing canon elements from Revelations, the peripheral games, and the encyclopedia.

Andiamo!]

Chapter 2: Shaun

Awareness came trickling back in a thin, cold stream.

_There was a woman…_

Pain, confusion. His heartbeat, unnaturally fast, throbbed in his temples like a hammer.

_She looked right through me._

Disorientation made the room spin wildly and he clutched at the smooth stone of the floor, scrabbled for purchase reflexively without realizing what he was doing.

_It was like she was trying to push me out of my own head!_

His eyes opened but the room was devoid of light. With no visual reference point, the spinning sensation increased. His breath was starting to come short and fast, panic setting in.

_Nothing is true._

The Creed flashed across his thoughts. Seizing hold of it, he forced himself to be still, to freeze in place.

_Nothing is true, everything is permitted._

Teeth clenched, he rolled onto his back. The motion didn't do his inner ears any favors, but he made his brain ignore what his balance was telling him, taking his spatial cues only from the cold, solid presence of the floor. Squeezing his eyes shut, he took one deep, controlled breath. Freezing air burned in his lungs, but he counted three seconds in, three out, four in, four out, five in…

_Nothing is true, everything is permitted. We work in the darkness to serve the light._

The thunder of his own pulse in his ears faded, leaving behind a high-pitched ringing. A faint scraping to his left made his heart rate shoot back up before he heard a groan and recognized Miles' voice. "Miles, what the almighty hell just happened? Who was that… was there a woman in here? Can you see anything?" There was no answer, just more scraping.

Shaun reached into his pocket, pulled out the penlight he used for reading after the others had gone to sleep. He clicked it on. The cold and adrenaline were making him shake like one of those ridiculous little fashionable dogs, and the spot of light veered crazily around the room. Sitting up to point it at where he thought Miles must be nearly made him drop the damn thing. It was like something was interfering with the connection between his brain and his body. He tightened his fingers around the flashlight, grabbed his wrist with his other hand and got it as steady as he could.

Miles lay facedown on the floor a few feet away, jerking and twitching in a horribly unnatural motion. Next to him, on her side, was Lucy, lying still in a way that was just as disturbing as Miles' spasms.

"Son of a _bitch_," Shaun tried to get to his feet, but just trying made him feel like he was going to be sick, so he crawled over on all fours instead. His foot knocked against one of their lanterns as he knelt beside Miles and he turned it on. One of the bulbs was broken and the remaining one buzzed and flickered, but it was better than nothing. In the light, he saw the dark pool spreading across the floor, the stains on Miles' hand and sleeve. Already knowing what he'd find, he pressed two fingers under Lucy's jawbone. Her skin was cool to the touch. No flutter of movement was there to give him reason for hope. Heat rose behind his eyes, and his throat tightened, but they were still in the field. He dug his fingernails into his palms. _Nothing is true._

He turned his attention to Miles. Struggling against his own persisting weakness and the erratic motion of the bigger man's limbs, it took him almost a full minute to get his fellow assassin turned over. There was a dark, wet streak down the front of that ubiquitous white hoodie. Shaun tried not to fixate on it as he wedged the penlight between Miles' teeth and took his own jacket off, using it to cushion the man's head. He put his hands on Miles' shoulders and held him down as best he could, waiting for the convulsions to subside.

A glint of gold caught his eye. The Apple lay where it had fallen from Miles' hand. Its mirror-bright surface was spattered with red. As he stared, the sphere seemed to ripple from inside. The red stains shrank, and a puff of steam rose into the air above the artifact. He looked quickly away.

Miles' seizure finally stopped. Shaun sat back, wiped sweat from his forehead. He hunched over and wrapped his arms around his ribcage, watching his breath rise in puffs – _just like the one from the Apple, was it _breathing? _No, can't be_ – in the lantern light, trying to get a handle on the dizziness, the nausea, the pain that was radiating from behind his eyes down the back of his neck. Trying to think of what to do next. With Lucy…well, without Lucy, he was the next-highest-ranked assassin present, meaning it was down to him to take command.

From behind him, he heard a hoarse whisper. "Ow. Fucking…ow_._"

"Rebecca. You need to get up."

"Shaun? 'Zatchu? Where? The room won't…my fucking head!"

"Use the Creed, Rebecca. I need you, and not in a few minutes. Right now. Come on."

He heard her shifting around, taking a deep breath. Then she shouted, "Lu! Oh shit, no!" On her hands and knees, still dizzy, Rebecca crawled to her friend. Cradling Lucy's head, she searched for a pulse. Finding none, she shifted to start CPR.

"Don't, 'Becca," barked Shaun, more harshly than he'd intended. He shook himself. "You can't. It's been too long."

"Too long my ass, what even happened? Two seconds ago we were all talking about what to do with the Apple!"

"_Rebecca_, look at the blood on her shirt, on Miles. Look at the color. It's going brown. We've been out for at least half an hour. She's gone."

Rebecca looked up at him, eyes wide. One hand rested on Lucy's shoulder, the other clenched into a fist. She searched his face. "But – no, we can't just…" her voice broke, and a tear spilled down one cheek.

Miles made a noise like someone was pressing on his trachea, a wheezy gurgle, and his eyes snapped open. For a split second Shaun saw recognition, then a shudder went through Miles' body, and another, and his eyes rolled back until only white was showing and he was seizing again. "Mother_fucker_," Shaun growled, resuming his position of holding the man down. "Rebecca, get his feet."

Eyes fixed on Miles' blood-soaked right hand, Rebecca sat as if frozen in place.

"Don't make me bloody order you, 'Becca! Get his feet before he hurts himself!"

Moving mechanically, Rebecca put her weight on Miles' legs to pin them down. They hung on to him in grim silence until the seizure passed. Rebecca moved back to Lucy's side. She glanced up at Shaun, frowned, reached across their comrades to put a hand on his shoulder. "Jesus, Shaun, you're cold as ice! Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

Briefly, he considered denying it, but the tremors in his hands told the truth for him. "I feel…off. Wrong. But at least I'm conscious. We need to get Miles to a safehouse, preferably a Station. If he keeps seizing like this, his brain could get damaged. He needs meds."

Rebecca shot Miles a look darker than the blackness outside the circle of lantern light, but she replied in an even tone, "Nearest medically equipped Station is almost a kilometer away."

Shaun slid two fingers under Miles' jaw, monitoring his pulse. His heart rate was all over the place, swinging from too fast to nearly comatose. He gave up trying to interpret the rhythm of beats in any way that made sense. "I'll go. I'm a faster runner than you."

"Not in this condition, you're not. Listen, I can do a six-minute mile just like everyone else in the Order. I'll grab some meds for you two. Twelve minutes at most, there and back."

"All right. And bring a stretcher. We need to get out to the truck, get out of town and signal for extraction, and find-" Something made him stop. Had he heard a noise from the Temple entrance?

"What-" Rebecca began, but Shaun held a finger up and hissed _sssh!_, pointing at the door.

The sounds were definitely there, and getting closer. Footsteps, and murmurs of conversation. Shaun counted three distinct rhythms of walking. Two were confident, striding down the hall. One was slightly more hesitant, a little uneven.

_We've got company,_ he mouthed to Rebecca. He tried to get to his feet and the ringing in his ears turned into a rush of sound and light. When it cleared he was back on the floor on all fours, Rebecca kneeling in front of him. "What the hell was that?" she hissed.

"I don't bloody know, I feel like someone's been at my skull with a sledgehammer!" He shoved at her. "Get up, get up! Whoever that is, we can't let them get the Apple!"

Rebecca got to her feet and stepped in front of him. Cautiously, Shaun shifted so he was on one knee. He glanced back at their fallen comrades. _Load of good I am if I can't even stand up and defend my friends_. Rebecca drew three throwing knives, holding them between the fingers of her right hand like claws. Shaun reached for his belt and swore under his breath. He'd been so excited about getting into the Temple that he'd left his knife in the van. Rebecca rolled her eyes and pulled a fighting knife with a serrated edge from her boot, handed it to him.

Shaun switched off the lantern and they waited in the dark, watching for lights at the door. The footsteps drew closer. They would need to wait until the last possible second to start a fight. Neither of them were totally inexperienced in combat, but they were both in non-combatant positions within the Order and weren't at the same level as the members who took wetwork missions. And that was when they didn't have a splitting headache and the strange sensation that the room was rocking slightly back and forth.

The footsteps stopped. Shaun waited. He could hear the rasp of Miles' breathing. No light shone through the door, and he realized whoever was there had put their lanterns out as well. Somebody was going to have to make the first move without being able to see.

Then a voice called out, "Walden, are you in there?"

_Will_. Shaun nearly started crying, he was so relieved to hear his Mentor's voice. "Yes! Yes, we're here!" He reached back, feeling behind him for the lantern.

As soon as the light clicked on they heard running footsteps, and Will came jogging out of the darkness. He stopped in front of Rebecca and laid a hand on her shoulder, then came to kneel in front of Shaun, blue eyes full of concern. "Are you injured? Update me on the situation. Do we have the Apple?"

"Mentor," Rebecca interrupted, "We retrieved the Apple, but Lucy's…that is, Walden is…" her voice broke and she shook her head.

Will looked at Lucy lying so still and pale, the dark stain already starting to soak into the stone floor. His eyes widened for a moment, then closed. A blank expression flitted across his face and Shaun could almost hear him reciting the Creed in his head. "I'm so sorry. I should have ordered you all to stay out of the Temple, to only send Townshend in, but by the time I learned of the danger you'd already left the Sanctuary."

Retorts and arguments flashed through Shaun's thoughts, and a bright red line of anger, but over it all was one concern. "Miles." Shaun glanced back at the prone form. "Something's wrong with him. Seizures."

In a flash, Will was at Miles' side, leaning over him. "Desmond? Son, can you hear me?" He slung his backpack off and pulled out a stethoscope, unzipped the bloodstained hoodie. As he listened to Miles' breathing and heartbeat, his brow drew into a confused frown. "What happened?"

Shaun shrugged. "He was in the middle of a seizure when I woke up, and had another immediately after that one. I don't know how many he might've had while we were out. But he needs some meds, and fast."

"No, I mean what happened before that? Do you know what might've caused this?" Will hung the stethoscope around his neck and went back into the pack, came out with a syringe and bottle of clear serum. He was the only Medic in the history of the Order to become Mentor. In fact, he was the only non-field-operative to become Mentor as far as anyone knew, despite the thousands of Medics and Historians, and more recently Technicians, the Order had seen over the centuries. Of course, by the time he took over there hadn't been many other choices.

The dizziness from before was back with a vengeance. Shaun moved carefully, shifted to face Will and sat cross-legged, one hand pressing into the floor to stay upright. "We found some kind of hidden code back at the villa. Ezio somehow knew to leave clues for Mi – er, for Townshend. When we got in here, the Apple was on a pedestal on this…altar, I suppose you'd call it. Looked like there was no way to get to it, but Miles said some woman was talking to him, saying stuff about Those Who Came Before, showing him the way to activate the bridge across. But we didn't see anybody. Or, not then, but…Rebecca, did you see a woman, right before you passed out?"

Rebecca had returned to Lucy's side, was brushing strands of hair that had come undone from her friend's usual tight bun out of her face. She shook her head, wiped the back of her arm across her eyes. "No. All I saw was Des picking up the Apple, then boom, I was on the floor."

Shaun frowned. "But there _was_ a woman. She was standing behind Miles. Right close behind him, in his personal space. And she was…odd, to look at. I couldn't place her ethnicity, or her style of clothing, and you know that's unusual for me."

Will, concentrating on injecting the serum into Miles' arm, glanced up at Shaun. "That _is_ odd. Did she do anything?"

The ringing in his ears was getting louder again, making it hard to concentrate. "Not really. I didn't see her for very long. It looked like she was talking, but I couldn't hear anything. She raised her arm like she was going to grab Miles' shoulder, but just before she touched him she…_looked_ at me. Will, her face, there was something _wrong_ about it. Her expression was like the look you or I'd give a bug on the wall. And the most incredible pressure started building up in my head, and I would swear to you it was coming from her. Then I saw…" he trailed off. It was too weird. It couldn't possibly have been real.

The Mentor had gone back to listening to Miles' heart. "Saw what?"

"Me. Like I was standing next to Townshend and looking at myself. That was when I passed out."

That got Will's full attention. He studied Shaun's face with narrowed eyes, and reached across to take his pulse. After a few seconds he asked, "How's your head?"

"Like someone's doing construction in it. And my ears won't stop ringing."

"Mother-" Will cut himself off, but he was grinding his teeth as he pulled out a penlight and shone it in Shaun's eyes. "Well I don't know how we missed this back at the Farm, but congratulations, you've got a little genetic material from Those Who Came Before. Your prize is a mild seizure." He pulled a clean syringe from his bag and filled it with serum, less than half the amount he'd used for Miles. "This is going to make you feel groggy in about ten minutes. We should get out of here and on our way to the Station now," he said.

"What are we going to do with Lucy's…with Walden?" Rebecca asked.

"We'll get her cremated," said the Mentor. "You can have charge of scattering the ashes if you want, but things are getting strained out there, and we'll be lucky if we get the Animus out of the country with Miles in it. We can't risk faking the paperwork for human remains, too."

"So leave the fucking thing!" Rebecca exploded, tears finally spilling from her eyes. "Destroy it! It's brought us nothing but misery! Whatever happened to us in here made Des _kill _her! And he would never have hurt anyone before. All due respect, Mentor, he _ran away from you_ to avoid the life! Sure, part of that was because he thought all of us on the Farm were _nuts_, but he was a teenager. He could've reported you to the authorities, could've accidentally tipped off the Templars by talking about you to people. But he didn't tell anyone about you, about the Farm, because he _didn't want you to get hurt_. And I'm pretty sure he cares more about Lucy than about you."

Will took in the Technician's rant calmly, giving Shaun his injection, checking Miles' pulse again. When she stopped for breath, panting, he said, "Are you finished?"

She nodded.

The Mentor put the vial of serum carefully back in its place in his bag, pulled out a plastic bag with a biohazard symbol on it and dropped in the two used syringes. "I would love to wash my hands of this war and live in peace, in hiding somewhere." His hand drifted down to rest on Desmond's shoulder. "But I tried that. Do you know what happened? My _son_ ran away from home and was captured and _experimented on_ by my enemies. And now we have to put him _back_ in the Animus, because it's the only way to fix this! And I'm not about to lose anybody else to this fight if I don't have to. So you'll excuse me if I don't feel like negotiating with you over our next move."

Red-faced, Rebecca took a breath like she was going to argue anyway.

"No." Will cut her off with a glare. "We can't waste any more time, and there is nothing you can say to sway me. I'm giving you more time than I can spare delaying by even a day, but I recruited you. All of you. Do you think I don't feel this loss? I want to hold a public funeral, to build her a tomb more beautiful than Michelangelo himself could have constructed and dye it red in Vidic's blood, but _I can't_."

Pale-faced, Rebecca closed her mouth.

Will visibly shook himself. "Gentlemen!" he called toward the entrance. "Your warnings were correct, but we've arrived too late. I'll need your help over here."

In the relief he'd felt at one of the sets of footsteps being Will's, Shaun had forgotten about the other two. He looked up as Will's companions approached.

A pair of beautiful handmade men's shoes stepped into the light, surmounted by an impeccably tailored pair of slacks, a casually expensive shirt, and a face right off Shaun's computer screen. The man's combed-back hair was slightly grayer, but there was no mistaking that scar, the one that seemed almost genetically passed down from man to man. "_Figlio di puttana_, _che peccato,_" he said, spotting Lucy.

And Shaun passed out again.


	3. Chapter 3

[Author's Note: Aaaand Chapter 3! Okay, so my buffer is currently at 2 chapters. I'm looking for something like five, but I also know it sucks when a fic you're reading updates once in a blue never. So my plan is to submit one chapter for every two I write until I'm at a buffer of five, then submit on a one-to-one basis. So the pace of updates I'm going for is slow but steady. Hopefully this will work!

**_CHAPTER WARNINGS:_** Brief mention of suicide.

Andiamo!]

Chapter 3: Desmond

He woke up with his head pounding like someone was actively hitting it with a hammer. Swallowing down the taste of bile in the back of his throat, he took deep breaths of the sea air to try to clear his head.

_Sea air?_

He jerked upright, opened his eyes. This was definitely not the Temple of Juno. This was…a coastline? He was sitting in the shallows of a sea, his butt planted in wet sand, more sand itching down his back where it had gotten into his shirt. He got to his feet, feeling as stiff and sore as if he'd just done a workout session back in the warehouse, and turned to face inland.

The island was covered in broken square pillars of black stone sticking out at all angles, some fallen entirely over…and some floating in the air, bobbing up and down and rotating slowly. "Mother. _Fucker_," he stated, running a hand through his hair to try to brush out some of the sand. There was nowhere he could be but back in the Animus.

There was a small hill that led up to several paired sets of intact pillars in a circle, extending straight up into the leaden grey sky until they faded from sight. At the bottom of the hill, in the middle of a huge cleared space that must have been at least as big as the Pantheon, stood a gate that looked like it had been constructed hastily, though how one could move giant blocks of stone with any haste was beyond him. In the space created by the crazily leaning stones was a sheet of flat blue light, glowing with a slight pulse.

He looked down at himself, trying to figure out which ancestor he'd gotten stuck as this time. He didn't recognize any physical cues, but he seemed to be unarmed, and his clothes were modern. He was even wearing sneakers like the ones he owned in the real world. "Hey, Shaun? What session are we on?" he called out. No one answered. "Shaun?" Silence.

"Rebecca, are you guys out there? Did you leave me in the chair again to go get coffee?"

Frowning, he closed his eyes, tried to bring up the Animus user menu. Nothing happened.

It was time to admit something was wrong. The Animus was having some kind of programming issue, a glitch, a malfunction. "Guys? _Guys?_" He called out, trying not to let fear creep into his voice. "What's going on? Someone talk to me! Hey! Lucy!"

_Pain head hurts so much pain she's burning me up hollowing me out gotta drop this thing gotta get away god it's so hot can't take it what no no nononononoFIGHTNODON'TWHYPLEASENO_

_Blade_

_Blood_

_Black_

Desmond dropped to his knees, stared at his hands. Of course there was no blood on them here in the Animus, but he could remember the feel of the hot liquid starting to run down his blade and onto his hand, the way it flowed into the ridges between his fingers and dripped from his palm. The look on Lucy's face. It was the last thing he remembered before everything went dark and there was somebody…somebody in his head? He brought his hands to his face like looking at them close-up would reveal the red stains he knew should be there. A drop of something clear fell onto his right palm. Rain? He looked up, but the sky remained unchanged. It wasn't until he looked back down, saw the dark spots on his jeans, that he realized he was crying.

Time passed.

Eventually, tired of feeling seawater soaking into his pants, Desmond moved from the beach to one of the fallen columns. He was entirely unsurprised when he dried off immediately. The sand down his shirt had disappeared too, he wasn't sure when. He'd forgotten it was supposed to be there, and the object permanence in the Animus wasn't the greatest when it was working properly, never mind when it was…doing whatever the hell it was doing now.

"Hey, Seventeen."

Desmond looked up. He knew that voice. "Hey, Sixteen." His own voice was rough around the edges, like he'd been screaming. Maybe he had. He wasn't sure.

"I saw what happened. Sorry about Stillman. She was pretty okay, for a soldier."

"She wasn't just a soldier."

The air in front of Desmond flickered. There was a sound like metal on glass, and a low buzzing. Some of the grass uprooted itself and swirled upward, defining an outline. Legs, a torso, arms. When it got to the top of the head, the buzzing escalated to a high pitched whine before suddenly cutting out, and there was a man standing there, as seemingly solid as anything else on the island. He didn't look at all familiar, but there was something about him, his build, his cheekbones, those Assassin's hands with their long, graceful fingers, that resembled Desmond. And Ezio, and Altair. Not as closely as they resembled one another, but it was there all the same. He stepped forward and crouched down to be at eye level with Desmond. "I know, man," he said. "It's okay. Apparently falling for women who're bad news can be genetically inherited."

"What?"

Sixteen shook his head. "Not important right now. I've had a lot of time down here, is all, and I've seen some stuff about our ancestors. But, listen, Seventeen, I know you're seriously hurting on a deep emotional level. Unfortunately all I've got for you is more bad news, and we don't have time to sneak up on it all gentle-like. Juno, who wins the award for world's least-helpful patron, by the way, has fucked you over right royal. Your brain just downloaded itself into the Animus to escape the fleshy meat computer meltdown going on in your skull. You're in shock right now, and up in the world your body's not doing so hot without you in it. The good news is, the fact that you're mostly coherent means they managed to shove you back into the machine before too much time passed, so we've got a chance to fix you up and send you on your merry way."

"Fix me…wait, no, back up. How are you even here?"

Sixteen grinned. "Computer genius, remember? I was on the fast track to becoming a Technician for the Order when Abstergo grabbed me. Brains are brains, be they in a skull or a computer modem. Course, no data storage medium's perfect. The Animus doesn't really appreciate visitors in this particular subroutine. The Island was the original loading room, back when they were first testing things out, but they found it was better psychologically to use the whiteroom protocol and menu screen…aaand that's not important. What _is_ relevant is that you can get into the memories from here. Who were you last?"

"Uh…Ezio Auditore da Firenze." Desmond still didn't quite get what Sixteen was talking about.

"Great! So let me give you the two-second tour." Sixteen pointed up the hill at the infinitely tall doorways. "Those are important. They lead to your own memories. But you won't be able to get through them yet, because your memories haven't been sorted into the right files. I went through this already myself, so I know all about it."

"What do you mean, haven't been sorted? I remember everything just fine."

"Mmm-hm, sure you do. Where were you born?"

_Firenze_, popped into his head, then, _no, stupid, that's Ezio. It was Masyaf…no, that's Altair. _"I…can't remember."

"Yep. Your short-term memories seem to be ok, mine were too. But man, my long term memory was _fucked _when I got in here. I could remember everything about the other people I'd been, but my own damn name was about all I had that was really mine. I figured it'd be the same for you. Don't think about it too hard, it's not permanent." He held his hand out and in it was what looked like a computer glitch given physical form. It folded in on itself endlessly, never settling on one form for longer than a second.

"The hell?" Desmond couldn't look at it too long without feeling nauseated.

"Touch it."

"Um, no."

"Go ooonnn, you know you want to. What's the worst that could happen?"

Desmond raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms.

"Point. Okay. What if I promise it's nothing bad?"

"Fine. I guess things can't get much worse." Desmond reached out and poked at the…thing.

"_Des? You still up?" It's three in the morning and he's supposed to be getting some sleep in Claudia's old office, which he and Shaun are using as their room. The girls are bunking in the armory. Lucy stands in the door that opens into the house's main hall, wearing flannel pants and a green sweatshirt with a parrot logo on it. Her hair is down and he thinks idly that it's longer than he'd imagined._

_He sits up in his camp cot, blanket wrapped around his shoulders against the chilly October night. "Yeah. Can't sleep?"_

"_You either, looks like. Where's Shaun?"_

"_Preparing a bigass file for me on the Borgias, since it looks like we'll be seeing more of them. Er, Ezio will be, that is."_

_She walks into the room, stops by the table that used to hold the model of the town. He notices her feet are bare. "I heard you last night. Was it…was it the bleeding effect?" He knows what she really wants to ask, if it was bad, if it was the beginning of the end, if he's going down the same road as Sixteen._

_He nods. She sighs, steps closer, hesitates. He slides over on the cot, motions to the space next to him. She takes him up on the offer, drawing her feet up off the cold floor and sitting cross-legged. One of her knees presses into the side of his leg through the blanket and he has to resist the urge to put an arm around her shoulders._

"_I'm sorry," she murmurs, and before he can ask for what she leans into his side and rests her head on his shoulder and all the words fly out of his mind._

"Christ!" Desmond jerked his hand back like he'd put it on a hot stove. "Warn a guy before you pull shit like that!"

Sixteen was laughing. "Apologies, man. Gotta take my kicks where I can get 'em in here! But you get it now, right?"

Desmond nodded. "That…thing, that was a memory. One of mine."

"Exactly. You're gonna want to keep a lookout for those artifacts in the memories you access when you head through there," Sixteen pointed to the gate with the blue glow. "When you collect enough in a sequence, those doors up the hill will open up. They're physical representations of file folders, in case you care. Inside you'll find the raw data. You'll need to access all of it, in the right order, to reclaim your own long-term memories. Basically you're doing a hard reboot and reloading your operating system from an external hard drive backup. Only the computer is your brain."

"No pressure or anything."

"Nah, if you fuck it up you'll just end up like me. Nothing to worry about."

"Good to know."

Sixteen stood up and stretched, offered Desmond a hand up. "You should probably get going. We've spent too long in here. The Animus'll be sending through an antivirus program and you do _not_ want to be here when it scans this file."

"What about you?" Desmond accepted the hand. Sixteen was almost exactly his same height, and they ended up eye-to-eye.

"Eh, I'll be fine. I've got lots of little hidey-holes scattered around this thing's hard drive. Since I don't have to worry about waking up anymore, it makes it easier. Oh, that reminds me," Sixteen let go of his hand and grabbed his shoulders. "This isn't normal operations, got that?"

"No, we've only spent the last half hour talking about that very thing. So of course I don't got it."

Sixteen shook his head. "I'm dead serious here, Desmond. You're not experiencing things _through_ the memories anymore, you're experiencing them _in_ the memories. As far as your brain's concerned, this shit's _happening_. Not like usual, when you've got the programming between you and whatever's going on in your ancestor's life. If you get hurt in here now – or I should say _when_, actually, given our lineage – the effects are gonna show up on your real body out there. Not exactly the same, obviously. But-"

Desmond cut him off, brushed away his hands, "I already know about that."

"Ah. You were getting the ghosts, huh? Guess they were working you pretty hard if it only took you a few months to see them."

"Yeah. I was wondering why they named it the bleeding effect. Seemed kind of sinister. Turns out it was pretty literal."

"Guess I don't have to tell you, you might not wake up in the best shape."

"Whatever. I'll take it over not waking up at all."

His predecessor looked him up and down with a thoughtful expression. "Yeah, I think you'll be able to handle it." The air around them, previously damp with sea mist, took on a strangely dry, metallic smell. Sixteen glanced at the sky. "Okay, we've officially outstayed our welcome. Get going, but don't stay in the memories too long either. Once you get in there you'll be able to access a kind of super-basic user menu, use it to get back out here a couple times every sequence. I'll meet you. Gotta keep moving around to stay ahead of the system. And hey, good luck!" With that, Sixteen's form froze in place. The color faded out of it, then it disappeared, starting in the middle and spreading outwards.

Desmond could see something coming over the horizon. It looked a lot like a giant wave. He definitely didn't want to stick around to find out what would happen when it reached the island. Giving himself no time to change his mind, he ran through the glowing blue gate.


	4. Chapter 4

[Author's Note: Chapter 4 is go! Buffer system seems to be working well, slow-but-steady progress continues.

**_CHAPTER WARNINGS:_** None that I can think of. Let me know if I've missed something major.

Andiamo!]

Ezio

As soon as the bird had landed on his windowsill and he'd seen the color of the band on its leg, Ezio knew what message it bore. Barely pausing to read the actual words, he'd thrown a bit of food and a lot of money into a pack and stolen a fast horse. When the horse died under him, he ran until the next rider came into view, ripped the man from his mount, and threw a handful of gold coins into the road behind him as he spurred the animal to its fastest. When he reached a stable, he jumped from the sweat-soaked, wild-eyed beast and transferred its bridle to a fresh mount, jumping on bareback and throwing more money into the mud as the proprietor, roused from a sound sleep, came outside just in time to see him round a curve and disappear from sight with the horse already running flat-out.

He ate bites of preserved meat at the gallop, drank only when he had to, slept not at all. His world shrank to white on black dotted by blue and red. People who caught glimpses of his face shrank back in fear or covered their eyes. He bribed his way past most obstacles, threatened when bribing didn't work. On the ninth day, at the border, a group of former Pazzi guards employed by the French recognized him, thought to detain him. They died.

Ten days and a thousand miles later, he slid from his final mount outside the walls of Firenze, removed its tack, and set it free to wander. Someone would pick it up. Leaving everything but his money behind, he stood at the base of the wall and ran a hand over its surface. Numb and nearly blinded with fatigue, he thanked whatever gods watched over him that Florentine politicians worked so slowly. The reinforcements of the city's walls hadn't reached this section yet, and he'd climbed these walls so many times over the years that every crack, every loose brick, every lantern hook was as familiar to him as breathing. Smooth as silk, he was over the wall and in the city streets.

At first he attempted to blend with the crowds, but every slow footfall whispered that he was too late, that she was already gone. He found himself walking briskly, jogging, then running, shoulders colliding with those too slow to get out of the way, leaving consternation and calls for guards in his wake. There was a porter posted at the gate to her property who, as he saw the mud-covered, bloodstained figure come careening down the street, slammed the gate shut, but fences were no obstacle to Ezio and he was up the wall and on the second-level portico, through the louvered doors, and in the upstairs hall.

A young girl coming out of one of the rooms saw him and shrieked, let the bowl of water she was carrying fall, but all that hit the floor was a splash as his hand slid under the cool porcelain. He lifted the bowl to hand it back to her and her eyes found his. She gave a start, then peered closer. As she took the bowl back, she ventured, "Are you Signore Ezio?"

It was the first time someone had spoken to him on a personal level since he'd started his ride, and he realized he couldn't see her face, just a mass of blue space. He shut his eyes and ground the heels of his hands into the sockets, and when he opened them the world was in color again. The shift was disorienting, like the reverse of the first time he'd used his eagle eyes. Then, the black and white and blue had seemed terrifyingly nebulous, as if everything disappeared when he wasn't looking at it. Now, even the shadowed hallway seemed bewilderingly bright and detailed, and some of the shapes didn't quite fit together into the objects they were supposed to be.

"Signore? Are you all right? Do you need the doctor?"

The girl, who had light brown hair pinned up in a tight bun, was looking at him with concern. He realized he'd sagged to the side slightly, supporting himself with one hand on the wall. "Si…I mean, no, I don't need the doctor. I am all right. And to your first question, yes, that is me. Have you been expecting me?"

She nodded. "Milady told us to look for you. You're to be allowed directly in."

His head snapped up and she took a nervous step back. "So I'm not too late, then?"

"No, sir. But…she is very weak. You mustn't tire her, or say or do anything to distress her."

"No…no, I won't. Please, just let me see her now."

The girl motioned to the door she'd just come through.

Even as he paused at the threshold to collect himself, the woman lying in the bed opened her eyes and fixed them on him. Those eyes were the one part of her that had remained the same, clear and silver-grey, soft as a dove's wing or hard as flint depending on her mood. Clouded at first by the narcotic effects of the medicines prescribed by the doctors, they cleared with recognition. A smile curved her lips as she lifted one of her hands from where it lay atop the bedspread, reaching for him.

With two strides he crossed to her bedside and knelt, taking her hand in both of his. Her cheeks were red with burning fever, but her hand was freezing cold. The rasp of her breathing was so loud it seemed to fill the entire room, but when she spoke he had to lean close to understand her words, exhaled with such labor it hurt to hear.

"Was worried…you wouldn't come in time," she said. "Too busy…providing a living…for the English undertakers."

He shook his head. "You know I could never be too busy for you, Caterina."

She laughed, coughed weakly. "Not what you said…when Giovanni was born…"

"I'm sorry."

She frowned at him, struggled to sit up straighter. "No. Don't say that. From you, of all, I…don't want false contrition. Too many have come to me…apologizing because they think they are obligated."

He put a hand on her shoulder. "_Dispiace, amore_. In that case, I assure you I would have made a terrible father. But you must rest."

She shook her head, but subsided back against her pillows. "Soon…will have all the rest I need…and more. No, don't deny…what you see plainly to be true."

Ezio found himself biting back tears. He'd spent the long ride from England attempting to shove his emotions to the side, to focus only on speed and more speed, on covering the distance. Now, confronted with the truth of what was coming and her insistence that it had to happen, he found himself unprepared for how desperately he wanted things to be different.

His thoughts flashed to the vault under the Coliseum, the heavy golden sphere waiting patiently for its next wielder. It had performed miracles, some of them at his command. He could retrieve it, could come back here and try to use it to fix her, clear the fluid from her lungs and the fever from her blood.

As if reading his thoughts, she grabbed his forearm with her free hand, gripping with surprising strength. "Don't you even think it. I want nothing to do…with that thing, whatever…it is. Do you think…I haven't considered it…a thousand times, lying here…and a thousand more, after I knew…I wouldn't be getting up? My children, my grandchildren…little Gio, especially…they need a strong protector. And while I know you are willing…you have the Order to think of…they are your first responsibility. Leonardo, sweet man that he is…has offered, but we both know…he is even less suited than you. Galeazzo can handle things…for now, but he…has put his career on hold to take care of me. So it seems…even after I die, I will still…be the only truly useful person of the Sforza name."

He cocked his head to the side, confused. Her eyes twinkled with amusement at his expression, and she let go of his arm to point at the desk. It was covered in stacks of letters, tied in sets with colored ribbons, each envelope sealed with her family's coat of arms. There must have been close to two hundred. He looked back to her. "Have you taken up novel writing as a pastime? Dante himself would be jealous of such a volume of literary output."

"Ha! He wished he had my…skill with a sentence. But in seriousness, Ezio…I have three requests. Will you hear them?"

"Of course, _cara mia_." He kissed her hand.

"All right then. Those letters. They are my protection for my family. I will not trust them…to some overcurious courier…who might think to make a profit from my secrets. Will you use the Order to deliver them? And the deliveries must…be by hand, not by bird. I can make it a…contract, if you like."

He shook his head. "No need. I will see that they reach only their intended recipients and no one else."

She let out a little sigh, and some of the tension seemed to ease from her face. "Thank you." Then she wrinkled her nose. "And now, I think…the rest can wait a while. You smell of…horse sweat, and blood…and worse." For the first time, her gaze took in the details of his appearance, rather than just his presence. Concern drew her brows together as she reached out and ran a feather-light touch down the side of his face. "Oh, just look at you…you silly man, did you even…sleep at all? Of course you didn't. I don't suppose…I could talk you into resting now?"

He shook his head.

"Well, I guess I can't…blame you. I admit…to some sleepless nights of my own, after…Cesare shot you, all those years ago."

"Truly? I didn't know."

"Why should you have? You were in a relationship…with Roma, with the Order, and then you seemed…so happy with Laura. And by the time she left, I felt…I'd lost my chance with you. And now this…well, it seems we were just…destined to always miss one another. But we can talk…more later. I am quite sure…I won't be dying tonight, and if you're…to spend any more time with me, I insist you at least…bathe and put on some clean clothes. Alisa will show you…to your room." She tugged her hand free from his grasp and picked a silver bell up off the nightstand. At its ring, the serving girl Ezio had terrified in the hall appeared at the door.

"Your bath will be ready shortly, Signore. If you would please follow me?"

Ezio glanced back at Caterina, who made a shooing motion with her hands. His earlier frantic hostility gone, and with it the very last of his energy, he followed the girl – Alisa, Caterina had called her – mechanically as she led him to the guest suite that had seemingly been prepared in anticipation of his arrival. It wasn't far from Caterina's rooms; the palazzo was built as a mirror image centered on an entrance space, not unlike the villa at Monteriggioni. Ezio's room was the first door in the men's wing, closest to the upstairs hall connecting the mirrored halves of the building.

The furnishings were understated in design, but brightly colored and of luxurious materials. Though Caterina was technically serving out political exile thanks to her enemies in Forli, most people would have found the high-ceilinged, brightly-lit rooms of the new palazzo preferable to the dank, dark, comparatively cramped castle occupied by the rulers of the fortress city. He ran a silk curtain tie through his hands and smiled. All this tasteful elegance must have gotten on her last nerve.

The rooms in this palazzo had their own attached bathrooms, in the modern style. The door to Ezio's stood ajar, and he could see that it was lit by a leaded glass window, currently glowing gold in the sunset, and a lantern that hung from a hook on the wall. A claw-footed copper tub stood gleaming on the blue and white tile floor, steam rising from the water.

Alisa cleared her throat, and he realized he'd been standing still and silent with the silk curtain tie in his hands for a full minute. He shook himself. "Er…my clothes?"

"Leave them on the floor and they will be collected. Clean garments in your size will be prepared by the time you are finished bathing. Is there anything else you require?"

_A way to turn back time_. Ezio shook his head. "Not at the moment, no."

Alisa dropped a small curtsy and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her. Ezio began the process of removing armor, weapons, and clothing that hadn't been cared for in ten days. His work clothes, as he called them, were designed to be worn on long, hard missions, but Assassins in the field always, _always_ made time for sleep and to clean their armor and weapons. Dull wits and dull blades had no place in their business, as Volpe put it.

The leather straps holding everything in place, from pauldrons to greaves, had been exposed to all of the elements without cleaning, and several had already given way. His left bracer was gone, lost in the scuffle at the border. More fittings snapped as he went to unbuckle them. Under it all he wore a padded shirt, to prevent chafing, but against ten days of hard riding it hadn't stood a chance, and as Ezio peeled off his chain mail tunic he could feel the cotton fabric sticking to sores rubbed into his shoulders and back. He didn't even want to think about the state of his feet, avoided looking as he slowly worked off his boots.

Finally, he stood naked in front of the tub. At first the idea of a hot bath had seemed like an excellent idea, but now he confronted the steaming water wearing the same expression with which he would face a spiked wall, or a yard full of vicious dogs, or a vat of boiling oil. Dipping a foot in proved foolish, as the second it broke the surface the raw skin of his heel sent incredible stabbing pains up his leg. Actually, no, it was worse than being stabbed. How was that even possible?

He needed to get clean, though. Several of the worst sores were already turning red around the edges. Leonardo, patching him up back in the early days, had often ranted at length about how medicine needed to move forward in Florence and Rome if they were to hope to keep up with the advances being made in the east. Particularly, he'd stressed the importance of keeping any wound that broke the skin clean, in order to avoid infection.

Scanning the room, Ezio saw that the tub's drain wasn't connected to the floor. Instead, the tiles sloped slightly toward the area under the tub, where there was a drain in the floor itself. He grabbed the large pitcher, meant for drinking water, from the bathroom counter, and filled it with bathwater. Giving himself time for one deep breath, he shut his eyes and poured the water over his head.

Stinging needles swept across his shoulders and upper back. It was like being lashed with a whip, one that was coated in acid and also on fire. "_Cazzo! Che fa male! Figlio d'una cagna!_"

His swearing brought a pair of servants, Alisa and a young boy he hadn't seen before, running from the hall. "Signore, are you all…oh, _Dio mio_!" Alisa did a double-take at the sight of Ezio standing naked and soaking wet, turned bright red, and fled for the hall.

"Signore," the boy took up, calm except for a hint of amusement at Alisa's embarrassment, "are you all right?"

Ezio nodded, letting out a resigned sigh. "Could I perhaps trouble you for some soap?"

After thirty minutes and much impugning of the water, the bathtub, the pitcher, the soap, and the mothers of each, Ezio was clean. He stepped over the ring of dirt he'd left on the tiles and found that someone had managed to leave a fluffy white towel and some clothes folded on the bed without him noticing. That was impressive. He'd have to ask Caterina where she got servants that could sneak up on him.

The clothing fit him perfectly, as promised, and was fairly close to what he would've chosen to wear himself. A simple outfit of black canvas breeches, a red silk shirt with long, loose sleeves, a close-fitting black vest with subtle embroidery at the collar, and soft deerskin suede house slippers that didn't aggravate his blisters. His armor was in desperate need of attention, but he merely stacked it neatly on a chair and laid most of his weapons on the desk, taking with him only his sword, knife, and of course the hidden blades.

It was late, and most of the household had gone to bed, but Alisa was sitting in a chair in the hallway outside of Caterina's room, knitting. When she saw him, she blushed and started to stammer out an apology, but he just shook his head and cut her off. "No no, signorina, it is I who should apologize for using such vulgar language in the presence of a young lady. You merely thought I needed aid. So please, accept my apology."

Still red, Alisa nodded. "She is sleeping," she said as he walked past and through the door. "Please try not to wake her. And fetch me if the doctor needs to come."

Ezio padded across the room, the soft shoes almost as good as bare feet for moving silently. He took the chair from the desk and set it by the side of the bed, intending to keep watch through the night. Instead, he found that his eyelids literally would not stay open. None of his usual tricks worked, not even reciting the Creed. He stood and paced across the room, back and forth, since as long as he was moving he could stay awake.

After only his fifth trip across the seven-stride space, Caterina's voice spoke up. "What time is it?" she asked.

He checked the clock on the desk. "About ten minutes until nine at night."

There was a pause. "What day?"

"The same as my arrival. Did I wake you?"

She shook her head. "I only doze now. A few minutes here, an hour or two there. My own breathing wakes me." She patted the bedspread beside her. "I won't try to make you…go to your own room, but at least lie down? You came so far…so quickly, you must be…beyond exhausted."

"I don't know if that's…"

"What? Wise? Appropriate? I'm a dying woman, Ezio. I get to decide what's appropriate now." He never stood a chance against her under normal circumstances, and she was right, he certainly wasn't going to try to argue now. As he passed through the moonlight slanting between a gap in the curtains, she smiled. "Ah, there's my Ezio. You look much better now." She sniffed as he stepped closer. "And smell better, too."

The bed was wide enough that three people could probably have lain in it side by side without touching, so there was plenty of space for Ezio to sit next to her and lean back against the pillows. Caterina lifted her head, took his hand, and placed his arm around her shoulders, then settled into the curve of his shoulder with a contented sigh. The dark softened the harsh effects of sickness on her face, but Ezio could feel her fever through his clothes and see the sweat-darkened curls of hair at her temples.

"You said you had three requests - " he started, but she tapped her hand against his chest and shut her eyes.

"Not now," she said. "I am tired again. I will tell you tomorrow."

Resigned, he stared at the intricately carved wardrobe against the opposite wall, planning to wait for her to wake up. Counting her raspy breaths, he barely got to thirty before his body's needs wrenched control from his mind's intentions and sent him into a deep, dreamless sleep.


	5. MOVING

MOVING

Apparently at some point the rules went through a change and now we can't all be mature adults about the fact that porn exists and some people enjoy reading and/or writing it. Seriously people? Sex is a thing. It happens. It can be pretty great. Why wouldn't you want people to be able to enjoy imagining people they think are hot engaging in some great sex? Bunch of prudes.

Therefore, I'm closing down my account and moving everything over to Archive of Our Own. Same pen name, same stories. Now with 1 million percent more Avengers feels. See you all there!


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